“One of the hallmarks of Chicago is that we do so many things in an original manner. What other city has made a river flow backwards? What other city makes traffic flow backwards?”

“The school system sucks.”

“It is hopeless for the occasional visitor to try to keep up with Chicago—she outgrows his prophecies faster than he can make them. She is always a novelty; for she is never the Chicago you saw when you passed through the last time.”

“Chicago is unique. It is the only completely corrupt city in America.”

“A newspaper is the lowest thing there is.”

“Here is the difference between Dante, Milton, and me. They wrote about hell and never saw the place. I wrote about Chicago after looking the town over for years and years.”

“No realistic, sane person goes around Chicago without protection.”

“Perhaps the most typically American place in America.”

“I give you Chicago. It is not London and Harvard. It is not Paris and buttermilk. It is American in every chitling and sparerib. It is alive from snout to tail.”

“I have struck a city, a real city, and they call it Chicago. I urgently desire never to see it again. It is inhabited by savages.”

“Going to Chicago was like going out of the world.”

“Chicago sounds rough to the maker of verse. One comfort we have — Cincinnati sounds worse.”

“I adore Chicago. It is the pulse of America.”

“Maybe we can show government how to operate better as a result of better architecture. Eventually, I think Chicago will be the most beautiful great city left in the world,”

“Chicago is not the most corrupt American city. It's the most theatrically corrupt.”